medtech - search results

Medical technology, or MedTech, brings solutions to improve lives using the latest advancements in technology. It is an evolving concept that combines innovative, high technologies such as artificial intelligence, Internet of things, nanorobotics, big data and even Blockchain to tackle the biggest challenges in medicine over the last decades. Overall, it has developed a more human, inclusive approach that aims to provide health for all.

Medical conditions and healthcare are being transformed by the disruptive and break ground technologies used by health professionals that are changing the lives after a rough diagnose or an accident. The main objective is to give back to the patient a certain level of the original quality of life by improving, replacing or simulating a physical characteristic close to the genuine one, in order to maintain the respective functionality and/or appearance. This aims to restore dignity and contribute to social inclusion. Therefore, here I will list the top 5 most impacting tools, methods and procedures that have been already implemented successfully in patients and have reached a satisfactory progress and rise in their quality of life.

3D printed body parts

The Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine prints ear, nose and bone scaffolds that can be coated with cells to grow body parts. (Laurie Rubin)

3D printing started to gain awareness in the past years, as engineers and designers started using this tool to create the unthinkable. This technology has been around for two decades; fortunately, the price has come down in recent years and more people have been able to make use of it. Consequently, we’ve started to be able to really tap into its vast potential.

One really exciting application of 3D printing is the generation of body parts. The level of detail that this technology can produce often overcomes traditional methods results, offering patients a superior fit or design, and they can often be produced at an impressively low cost.

Virtual Reality for Medical experience and education

Dr. Shafi Ahmed wears a VR headset as he operates on a fictional patient as part of the Virtual Surgeon program his company designed.

On April 14, 2016, the British doctor Shafi Ahmed performed the world’s first operation broadcasted around the world via virtual reality.

The entire operation, which lasted approximately three hours, was live-streamed on Medical Realities website for people without a VR headset. For those who have one, they could download the “VR in OR” app to get immersed in the 360-degree surgery room, right beside Ahmed as he removed cancerous tissue from a male patient’s bowel.

The surgery began at 1 p.m. local time at the Royal London Hospital. Thanks to a partnership between Barts Health and the 360-degree video company Mativision, the broadcast will serve as a training tool for up-and-coming surgeons and other medical professionals. Rather than endure an expensive flight to a hospital for on-site education, students can tune into VR and still see firsthand how it’s done.

Food Scanners

Food scanners

A food scanner is designed to tell how many grams of sugar a fruit contains, or what the alcohol percentage of a drink is. Even though this is one of the most recent inventions that still needs adjustments in its different brands, it has been a powerful tool for people with gluten intolerance and diabetes to overcome fears at the time of eating and choosing food.

Food scanners will need to progress similarly to wearable health trackers – move from raw data to automated analysis and smart suggestions to the user.

Nanorobotics

Nanorobotics

Surgical nanorobots are introduced into the human body through vascular systems and other cavities. They act as semi-autonomous on-site surgeon inside the human body and are programmed or directed by a human surgeon. The programmed surgical nanorobot performs various functions like searching for pathogens, and then diagnose and correct lesions by nano-manipulation synchronized by an onboard computer while conserving and contacting the supervisory surgeon through coded ultrasound signals. Nowadays, the earlier forms of cellular nano-surgery are being explored.

Prosthetic parts

Printed skin made as face prosthesis

One of the bigger advancements in MedTech that have promoted social inclusion is all kinds of prosthesis either for humans or animals. Prosthesis comprehends a large diversity of technologies that contribute to the final result. 3D printing is used to recreate physical appearance as AI to recreate motion and dexterity.

The skin is technically the largest organ in the human body and thanks to 3D printing, it is possible to replicate it if needed. This can actually be done by taking a sample of DNA and growing stem cells to create a material to ‘print’ with. In the past, in order to perform a skin transplant, one would have to remove a patch from another part of the patient’s body. It might be a painful process and creates an additional unnecessary wound. It is officially possible to 3D-Print skin and transfer it onto patients but within a few years, will be even possible to have the capability to Scan and 3D-Print directly over the wound with just one machine.

With these MedTech solutions, healthcare is rapidly advancing not only to expand the variety of options to patients but to restore and improve the confidence and quality life conditions of them. A human being needs to feel useful in society to contribute and participate by its own means of them. That is why MedTech plays a fundamental role in integrating every individual as a needed and valuable member in the society.

The host city of SIGEF 2018 is a reference in MedTech and new technologies as indeed Singapore aims to be at the upfront of a promising market with the right setup to attract both investors and innovators.

(Photo: RENDY ARYANTO/VisualVerve.SG)

Singapore is home to more than 60 MedTech companies which are mainly focused on research to develop new and innovative health care approaches. It is, indeed, a promising market. According to the Singapore Economic Development Board, the Asian medical technology market is expected to be the world’s second-largest by 2020, with a promise of a better life expectancy and quality of life.

In the last few years, the government has made a big effort to build a welcoming infrastructure for these businesses, either by investing in patient care based on a talent pool with big data and analytics skills, or by developing a supportive ecosystem which counts on research institutions, universities and startups, all of which provides the MedTech companies with a rich and fruitful research and development hub.

This ecosystem allows for companies like Tictrac – an app developing company which focuses on tracking health data and giving tips and information to its users -, to come up with solutions for patients with diabetes and other chronic diseases. In a recent interview, Martin Blinder, Tictrac CEO, confided that: “It is for people to find reliable information about the best way to reduce risk and improve their health. After meeting their doctor, people go home with some very high-level information, often go online and end up finding a lot of contradictory information or dangerous fat diets”. The company has a partnership with the Singaporean Ministry of Health, which aims to use more technology to prevent and manage diseases.

The successful combination of a friendly environment for MedTech innovation and public-private partnerships has pushed many companies to be more willing to invest in this market. In the last few years, a number of Singaporean IT businesses have set up MedTech operations in order to profit from the market’s good prospects. The electronic manufacturer Venture Corp is one of them and has been shifting their investment to LifeSciences and Medical Technologies, which now represent 43% of their revenues.

In a speech at a MedTech event last year, the Minister for Trade and Industry S. Iswaran stressed the importance of investing in new health care technologies knowing that populations are getting old and that artificial intelligence is taking over most industries. “We know that the nature of jobs is changing profoundly, as technology and automation play an increasing role in driving innovation and operations,” he said. “We need to transform our societies and economies to become more age-friendly, and turn longevity into a positive force for economic and social development.”

The host city of SIGEF2018 next September is thus the perfect place to bring together innovators and entrepreneurs from all over the world. Organized by Horyou, it will include a special panel on MedTech.

Horyou has always aimed to bring the best to its community. As a member of the Horyou team, I’m happy to highlight some of the most important facts, actions and events that have marked 2018:

Time to celebrate!

– The launch of HoryouToken, the Token for Inclusion and Sustainability, built on the concept of Blockchain with a Purpose. It’s a major step in Horyou’s history, considering that Blockchain is an innovative, groundbreaking technology that has the potential to benefit hundreds of millions of people worldwide. HoryouToken is now listed at LAToken and CoinTiger.Click here for more information and see our interview to Cointelegraph.

– The 5th edition of SIGEF, the Social Innovation and Global Ethics Forum, which took place in Singapore, the innovation oriented metropolis in Southeast Asia. This year’s programme was one of the most technology-driven editions of SIGEF, addressing such issues as MedTech, Fintech and Blockchain, Smart Cities and Future Technology, Impact Investing, Future Energy and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and setting a trend for the next SIGEFs to come. See the SIGEF at a glance video on our YouTube channel.

SIGEF 2018 took place in Singapore

– Horyou’s growing global presence through networking events, international conferences and its continuously expanding community comprised of organizations, personalities and change makers! Horyou’s founder and CEO, Yonathan Parienti, started the year speaking about Sustainable Financing Alternatives at WSIS Forum 2018, and ended it with an interview on the Blockchain Media as a personality on the Blockchain Industry.

The Horyou Team is excited and busy working on new projects for 2019! We are proud to announce:

– A Disruptive Innovation Media project that will bring news about Blockchain and Cryptocurrency, Technology and Science, Innovative Entrepreneurship and more themes that are changing the world as we know it.

– SIGEF 2019, to be held in Tokyo, Japan. Asia will be welcoming Horyou with open arms and helping our community to become even more global.

– Horyou Team will be present in Davos during the World Economic Forum, conducting meetings with international friends and future partners. If you go there, feel free to reach out!

HoryouToken

– More partnerships, events and networking projects supporting the UN Sustainable Development Goals, economic inclusion and social entrepreneurship all around the world.

Stay tuned to our blog, our social media channels (Twitter, LinkedIn and Youtube) and Horyou, the social network for social good. And a Happy New Year to all of you, members, partners and friends!

In an era of disruptive change, innovation and creativity are pivotal in the process of working together to find the right solutions to the challenges that it inevitably triggers.

Panel about the Sustainable Development Goals (SIGEF 2018 – Singapore)

The world is changing. While the realm of technology and information is expanding, many of us feel we are entering a new era that yet needs to be decrypted. I, myself, feel that my way of doing journalism is nothing short of obsolete, while many newsrooms nowadays rely on bots and digital engines to do part of the news-hunting that human beings would still be doing a not so long while ago. But journalists are not the only ones concerned. In Bangladesh, many workers are being deemed redundant in the apparel industry as machines are now performing their manual tasks. Likewise in Switzerland where pharmaceutical companies are firing at arm’s length due to the disruptive competition from MedTech startups. Which leaves me wondering if there really are ways to prevent the rise of unemployment, social unrest and poverty that these trends imply?

Yes, there are; and I am confident about that. The above examples are all picked off the media which, as we know, tend to be quite fussy about automation and robotics; but there is always a brighter side to things. Like, instead of the ‘robots are stealing human jobs’ speech, why not develop a ‘technology is helping us to work and live better’ discourse? From small villages in Africa to high-tech compounds in Europe, social innovation is a global reality, and it is building in us more hope into finding solutions for a far better quality of life than ever.

Consider SIGEF, the Social Innovation and Global Ethics Forum organized by Horyou; its 5th edition took place in Singapore, last September. Now a leading global event, SIGEF 2018 showcased examples of how human interactions with technology are liable to generate change for good. It also highlighted future energy solutions, smart cities accomplishments, and medical technology advances, while analyzing positive disruptive effects of Blockchain, and exploring promising areas of impact investing, in resonance with the UN Sustainable Development Goals that are set to shape better times to come.

The event notably introduced the realizations of noteworthy innovators such as Kavita Sinha, from Silver Spring Networks, who founded an NGO which uses brain implants to facilitate the inclusion of children with hearing disabilities, or Thuc Vu, co-founder and CEO of OhmniLabs’, who designed and set up an open innovation platform which calls on collaborations to make robotics more accessible.

In the words of Yonathan Parienti, founder and CEO of Horyou, the social network for social good, organizer of SIGEF, and initiator of HoryouToken, a cryptocurrency based on “Blockchain with a purpose”, SIGEF is a platform for the exchange of ideas and hope, where social innovation thrives to bring “real value for society while supporting constructive initiatives aimed at promoting sustainability and inclusion.” Initiatives like these can bring us together as a global society to share solutions and fast-forward thinking.

Events like SIGEF are crucial to show how social innovation can be initiated by everyone and, in most cases, it is sustainable and profitable. What we have learned after 5 years is that social innovation is a tool against ignorance and intolerance and to help open bridges to a healthier, smarter, and more inclusive society.

With its fifth edition of SIGEF, which was staged for the first time in Asia/Singapore, Horyou aimed high and took its participants right where technology pledges inclusion and sustainability.

SIGEF 2018 took place in Singapore

From its opening remarks through to its closing speeches, with keynotes and panels tackling sensitive yet most relevant themes and topics such as urban sustainability, Fintech and blockchain with a purpose, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Gender equality, MedTech for inclusive care, social impact with financial returns, and clean and synchronized future energy, SIGEF2018 was set to serve as the model forum that Millenials have been requiring for years: a practical, positive and feasible solution geared gathering of investors, civil servants, researchers, experts, civil society activists, philanthropists, NGOs and academics sharing experiences, advice and proposals, all bound to lead to a more globally beyond frontier sustainable and inclusive future for all.

Fabrice Filliez, the Swiss Ambassador to Singapore, did the opening at the Suntec Convention Centre, insisting on “Swiss and Singapore commonalities promoting peace and security through dialogue”. This message, clearly, was not meant to stop at bilateral relations but be understood as the condition of possibility of global sustainability and inclusion. Building on the example of Horyou, the social network for social good, Mr. Filliez reminded the two-hundred-and-fifty-participant floor of the role of Switzerland in promoting peace and dialogue through hosting the headquarters of major global institutions whose role and actions are precisely aimed at Shaping Better Times to Come, which was the theme of the Forum.

Mr. Yonathan Parienti, Founder and CEO of Horyou, makes a keynote speech about HoryouToken – Blockchain with a purpose

Filliez was followed by Kazuhiro Hisata, serial entrepreneur, marketing expert, angel investor and a Blockchain evangelist, Founder of SRS Fintech Commerce Ltd. which sponsored the event, reminded the audience that likeminded differences are assets when sharing the same goals. Tackling the particular issue of blockchain and cryptocurrencies and the fears that, in some circles, they may induce, Mr. Hisata insisted that “Money can exist without form or shape; it is a good service and is more usable to change the world“. In that regard, and stemming inspiration from HoryouToken, he affirmed that each one can spread the ideals of Horyou.

Coming next, Yonathan Parienti, founder and CEO of Horyou, the organizer of the Forum, restated the objective of SIGEF2018 as a milestone on the road to “leverage technology to induce inclusion and sustainability”. Insisting on the need to find solutions he urged the participants to show more implication: “Don’t be shy, connect and share; be concrete and your dream – our dream – will turn to reality.”

First pitch on urban sustainability, Natalie Doran, Digital Marketing Director of Timetech, a blockchain-based time exchange project, put forth the importance of global timesharing as key to a more inclusive world. She was followed by Kavita Sinha, from Silver Spring Networks and founder of an NGO that caters for children with hearing disabilities, cited the example of her own son who, thanks to a chip implanted in his brain, “is now like just another kid”, to underscore the importance of technology for inclusion.

Also on that panel, Andy Sim, a philanthropist involved in digital innovations that make giving “simple, meaningful and fun for everyone”, talked about his pursuit of ways to “go beyond smart to avoid being less human”, and advocated the need to “create solutions before technology and to always seek the meaning of life while accruing our means to live.” He was succeeded by Damian Tan, Managing Director of Vickers Venture Partners and long-time IT specialist, who is actively involved in the project of “everyone being able to choose the kind of city they would like to live in”. Commenting on the best ways to mix philanthropy with profit, he asserted that the solution is to “always look for impact.”

Thuc Vu, co-founder and CEO of OhmniLabs’, and a robotics, Artificial Intelligence and algorithms expert, advocated getting over a sense of fear regarding robots and AI, for which end he designed and set up a special open innovation platform that calls on collaborations to make robotics more accessible and human friendly and turn them into real facilitators of inclusion. He was followed by Jan Ondrus, Associate Professor at ESSEC Asia Pacific and director of research at the Center for digital excellence in business, who underscored the digital divide but only to propose way to bridge the gap. “We are not equal in terms of access to technology”, reason why his current interests cover digital business models and innovation, digital platforms and ecosystems strategy, mobile payment and Fintech, and strategy of IT, to get over the divide.

The second session, dedicated to Fintech and blockchain, allowed for a second keynote contribution from Kazuhiro Hisata who described the ways Fintech and Blockchain technology are changing the world & lifestyles. “It is good service”, he asserted, insisting on “the opportunity that it offers to revolutionize humanity”. Also keynote speaker for that session, Yonathan Parienti insisted on the difficulty to get funding for all workers for social good but only to unveil effective ways to “make social good doers visible and sustainable, and help them expand.” “Everyone can be a force for good, everyone can share inspiration and be an agent of change” he added, before introducing HoryouToken, a cryptocurrency based on a Blockchain with a purpose, that “is not about speculation but about a cryptocurrency with real value for society that supports constructive initiatives aimed at promoting sustainability and inclusion.”

On the panel, Karen New, an ICO advisor and author of the first book on cryptocurrency, explicated ways of bridging “the gap in understanding technology of cryptocurrency in the general population”, a major obstacle hindering it’s going mainstream. She confirmed that “regulations are coming into space that will stabilize the market in terms of investment and speculation”, while admitting that “there’s always a risk because it takes time – easily a year or two.” Going in the same direction of how to turn cryptocurrency into mainstream substitute money, Kenneth Bok, director of Singapore-based Blocks, insisted that, beyond the issue of speculation, it is “important to talk about money and how the role of money is changing; talk about who issues and controls money, and how to be smart with fiat money”. Convinced that “decentralization will allow local communities to come together”, because “Blockchain is not just about money but about information.”

Chan Sik Ahn, a legal advisor and partner at HMP Law, explored the tricky ground of legal vs. illegal technology, reminding us of how we sometimes promote and sometimes prohibit technology. Reviewing ways of reconciling law and technology, which aims at the protection of the general public “because Blockchain has the same impact as the Internet”, he insisted on the importance of transparency and the need to make a difference among the many players that are coming up. “You have to look into them and find out about their project”, he advised.

Moving into SIGEF’s session 3 dedicated to the UN Sustainable Development Goals and how to help a quick implementation of their main dispositions, which was complemented with a panel on gender equality, was the occasion for keynote speaker Myriam Feiler, co-founder of bizzi.co, a collaboration platform for the world’s small business owners whose goal is to “enable collaborations that solve the world’s greatest challenges”. To that end, Miriam was looking to meet with individuals and organizations that are addressing the SDGs, as well as those that are committed to helping small businesses overcome their challenges to growth.

On the SDG panel was Mikkel Larsen, managing director at DBS, who assigned himself the mission to strengthen his bank’s sustainability agenda in various ways. In July 2017, for instance, DBS was the first financial institution in Singapore to issue a green bond to support the financing of green assets. “What does a bank to do with sustainability? Seek impact in all SDG areas, including gender equality.” “Money is at the core of everything”, he reminded candidly and “we look into a mix of social and environmental issues and we see the SDGs as investment opportunities.”

Looking into the perennial issue of which SDG should come first, Noriko Mitsui, entrepreneur and philanthropist, and Horyou’s ambassador in Japan, said that while all 17 SDGs are important and “Horyou supports all SDGs”, “for me hunger is my objective; my conviction and mission is that everybody has the right to live happily.” A conviction that was shared by Prasanna Da Silva, World Vision International’s (WVI) Senior Director of Operations/COO for APAC, whose motto is “work together”. Showcasing his unique experience in and excellent understanding of poor and marginalized communities, he underscored the importance of skills in community mobilization, capability building, and interfaith harmonization to successfully implement the SDGs. Da Silva also strongly promoted “the importance of partnerships and close collaboration with local government agencies and other community development actors.”

Da Silva was succeeded by Simon JD Schillebeeckx, Assistant Professor of Strategy & Innovation at the Lee Kong Chian School of Business of Singapore Management University (SMU), who urged all stakeholders for a clear prioritization of the SDGs, putting environmental issues and climate change at the very top, when Arndt Huar, Deputy Director at the UN Development Program (UNDP) Global Centre for Public Service Excellence (GCPSE), reminded panelists and participants alike that “SDG is a complex framework and complicated to measure while it reflects the complexity of reality”. Reflecting on the role of governments, he offered his vision whereby “governments are facilitators and not administrators of change.”

Keynote speaker on gender equality, Josie Ho, multiple award-winning actress, rock star, fashion icon and producer from Hong Kong, drew a list of some of the complications and hindrances relating to gender that an actress is bound to endure on any set but that, nevertheless, her positive and gamey vision of a life revolving around fire, ice and bliss, makes it easier on her to overcome and work to change through dialogue. On that panel, Hayden Majajas, head of diversity and inclusion at Bloomberg APAC, presented his strategy to deliver a measurable improvement in diverse workforce representation and work environment inclusion insisting on the propensity that many have in creating barriers and how to bring those barriers down via an institutional culture of inclusion. He was succeeded by Pia Bruce, soft-spoken and nevertheless very active former Executive Director of the Singapore Committee for UN Women (formerly UNIFEM), drew a compelling picture of her involvement in multiple initiatives that provide women and girls with access to education, economic independence and a life free of violence and abuse. Some of her contributions include supporting women led social enterprises in the region or being on the founding team of Aidha, a micro-business school for foreign domestic workers in Singapore, preparing migrant women to start small successful businesses in their home countries to support their families.

Also on that panel, Stephanie Dickson who assigned herself a “mission to make sustainability mainstream and sexy” as Director Blocks at Green is the new black, which she has founded and is “Asia’s first conscious festival and media platform for people who want to #LiveMoreConsciously by improving the way they think, work and consume while doing more good in the world”, through the organization of international events and experiences where fun and social responsibility go hand in hand.

The session was followed by a musical interlude that served as an introduction to the session on Medtech. The interlude was piloted by Emerson Gale, a violinist and international music education entrepreneur who specializes in soundscape Eco therapy. While doing his pitch, Gale introduced his strategy of building intergenerational communities via the arts and outdoor education in the U.S., U.K., and China. He has produced the Youtube channel Crypto Musical to offer educational information about blockchain for social good projects.

The interlude allowed for the MedTech session to get off to a flying start with a sixteen-year-old panelist who created an application to provide easy education for children with problems. Ondrej Vrabel, a true wonder boy, is indeed the author of the Innovative Project Pinf Hry (www.pinfhry.com), which was featured at SIGEF 2015, and the youngest holder of the Slovak Crystal Wing Award for Philanthropy. Project Pinf Hry helps children with special needs and learning difficulties with color recognition, reading, writing, logical thinking and other important skills which healthy people take for granted.

Ondrej was succeeded by Dr. Prem Pillay, now senior consultant at the Singapore Brain-Spine-Nerves Center at Mt Elizabeth Medical Center and Hospital and at the Advanced Spine Center at Mt Elizabeth Novena Medical Center and Hospital in Singapore. An award-winning and pioneering Neurosurgeon in the areas of less invasive Brain and Spine treatments/surgery, Dr. Prem Pillay predicts and militates for a programmed obsolescence of hospitals in favor of proximity technology that is both more humane and more efficient, whereby patients would be diagnosed and medicated at home thanks to adapted robotics.

Also on the panel, Maria Guzman, a psychologist, writer and life coach is also a survivor who went through a process of rebirth after a coma due to chemotherapy gone wrong. Her teaching/coaching, which she extensively presented at the conference, focuses on the meaning and importance of life and source of life., to close the gap between technology and humanity, and thus paved the way for Dr. Lindsay Wu, Chief Scientific Advisor and co-founder of Life Biosciences, whose work aims to control the ageing process to significantly extend lifespan while maintaining health and fertility late into life.

Then came the much-awaited session on impact investment with an opening keynote speech from Steve Leonard, founder and CEO of Singapore-based SGInnovate, a private limited company wholly owned by the Singapore Government who has chartered Mr. Leonard to lead a program that builds ‘deep-tech’ companies. Capitalizing on the science and technology research for which, he reminded, that Singapore has gained a global reputation, his team has worked with local and international partners, including universities, venture capitalists, and major corporations, to help technical founders imagine, start and scale globally-relevant early-stage technology companies from Singapore. Most notably, he has focused on people with no legal identity and consequently worked on providing legal identity to all and promoted Blockchain and donation to attain his goals. He also supported the revival of declining industries and cited, in that regard, the example of the support he provided to 750,000 people in Cambodia involved in reviving the silk painting industry.

Leonard was succeeded by Decentro Janukta, founder of Decentro Media New Zealand. In his talk, Decentro communicated to the floor his passion about the Education and Poverty aspects of the UN Sustainability Goals in particular, through a game changing truth regarding humanity and how we relate with Mathematics. With his mind challenging title of “Teaching Math to Goldfish”, he elaborated on his discovery and its importance to global social development and our decentralized future.

The panel that followed was comprised of Leonard and Decentro who were joined by Jenni Risku, a social impact entrepreneur and founder of the Women in Tech Conference in Asia. Jenni has been promoting cross-boarder investments between China and Europe until she launched Women in Tech, an annual technology conference that is organized in association with Singapore’s technology and innovation week SWITCH. Women in Tech, she explained, showcases female role models in tech and science, and provides various activities for career development in the industry. Its latest event at the MBS Expo in September, as she underscored, gathered over 1,500 people from 25 countries, had over 60 partner organizations and was sponsored by top industry influencers such as Accenture, Google, Facebook, CA Technologies, Amazon and others, and has attracted top policy makers, startups, corporate and SME leadership, students and media. Also on that panel were Marc Lansonneur, Robert Kraybill and Brian Wilson.

Lansonneur, Managing Director, Head of Managed Solutions and Investment Governance at DBS Singapore where he assigned himself the mission to source and distribute investment products and build an offer in social investment. Insisting on the need to avoid confusion between philanthropy and impact investing, he underscored the need to pick projects with a reasonable promise of guaranteed return on investment. As for Robert Kraybill, Managing Director, Portfolio Management of Impact Investment Exchange (IIX), has been instrumental in restructuring the Women’s Livelihood Bond, a first-of-its-kind listed impact investment bond designed to bring sustainable livelihoods to over 385,000 women in Southeast Asia.

Last but not least, Brian Wilson who defines himself as a Blockchain and cryptocurrency evangelist, has been focusing on Blockchain, cryptocurrency and mining to solve hunger. Based in Japan, he advocated transparency and cited his country of residence as an example of openness. In line with his philosophy, Wilson has started a cryptocurrency bar where he teaches cryptocurrency mining and the importance of this technology to the world. A firm believer in Horyou’s mission statement, he has opted to promote HoryouToken and has become an active ambassador of Horyou in Japan.

The final session on Future Energy kicked off with a keynote speech and two pitches that paved the way for a lively panel on the pivotal question of production standards and synchronized distribution during the transition towards the provision of cleaner energy. In his keynote, Leopold Feiler, a German serial entrepreneur in the fields of strategic marketing, media and communications, and Blockchain enthusiast, presented a revolutionary yet scalable and safe energy storage system that he designed and to which he finds potential to disrupt the future energy market. The pitch of Rowan Logie, an advisor to Swytch, a blockchain renewable energy verification and incentive project designed to create a trustless global market for smart carbon off-setting, presented various ways and devices based on solar energy. As for Vincent Bakker, co-founder and CFO of Positive Energy, he exposed ways and means to simplify the financing of smaller renewable energy projects that are meant to enable a sustainable electrification of the APAC region.

The panel that followed, was comprised of Feiler, Logie and Bakker who were joined by Assaad Razzouk, a Lebanese-British clean energy entrepreneur, investor and commentator, and Ryan Merrill, adjunct professor in sustainability, strategy and innovation at Singapore Management University. The animated discussions tackled the sensitive issue of realistic approaches to a smooth transition toward a wide scale production, storage and distribution of clean energy in the wake of the planned obsolescence – and death, in Mr. Razzouk’s words “Fossil fuels are dead, finished”, he affirmed -, of fossil fuels. Absolute as it was, though put into perspective by the other panelists, Mr. Razzouk’s statement was nevertheless an indication that the future of clean energy seems to be clearing out. That, at least, was the “reason to believe and be optimistic” conclusion of the panel.

Reason(s) to be optimistic was also the closing remark of SIGEF2018’s MC, Teymoor Nabili, as well as its chairman, Yonathan Parienti, both of whom reminded the participants that the forum’s primary aim was to nurture inspiration and positive action, while promoting the adoption of technology and innovation for sustainability and inclusion as the right way to start shaping better times to come. An appointment was made for everyone to gather again at SIGEF 2019.

Spotlight, the first digital currency for economic inclusion, will be launched in the event co-organized by the United States Government and the Republic of India.

Horyou founder and CEO, Yonathan Parienti, at the GES

Geneva, November, 2017 — Horyou, the social network for social good, will announce the launching of Spotlight, the first digital currency for economic inclusion during the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) in Hyderabad, India, on 28-30 November. After one year of beta testing, Spotlight will be showcased during the event to a strong group of entrepreneurs, government officials and impact investors attending the summit.

This year, the GES focuses on the theme Women First, Prosperity for All, and on supporting women entrepreneurs to foster economic growth globally. In resonance, Horyou will be joining forces with this inspiring initiative. Yonathan Parienti, founder and CEO of Horyou, has been invited by the US Government and the Republic of India to speak for the network on “Go For It: Tapping Alternative Financing Solutions”.

With Spotlight, Horyou supports the implementation of the 2030 United Nations Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, aiming at providing philanthropic support to millions of social entrepreneurs, women, youth and social good doers by 2020. «It’s an honor to share with this broad audience the disruptive innovations we have been working on over the last few years in order to support social good and set up harmonious conditions for economic inclusion», says Parienti.

More to come

Horyou’s participation in the GES is set to strengthen the social network’s presence in Asia, upon its inauguration in Japan in 2018. «We are proud to announce our growing engagement in Asia through the upcoming launch of Horyou in Japan, spearheading our development in the ASEAN countries. Spotlight aims to start a new chapter for philanthropy and social innovation in the region», adds Parienti.

In 2018, Asia will also host the Social Innovation and Global Ethics Forum (SIGEF), now a milestone global summit on social entrepreneurship and social innovation ecosystem. Following two editions in Geneva, one in Marrakesh, parallel to COP22 and one in Astana, during EXPO 2017, SIGEF 2018 will thus come about in Singapore, during the chairmanship of ASEAN summit in September. «Smart Cities, FinTech, MedTech, Impact Investing, Future Energies and the Sustainable Development Goals will be the main areas explored in this fifth edition of SIGEF, in Singapore, one of the leading innovative Cities and States worldwide”, concludes Parienti.